Pondexter’s evolution complete as senior moment arrives

Quincy Pondexter’s last game within and in front of the Dawg Pack will likely be played Saturday night. (Joshua Trujillo/Seattlepi.com)

He’s alone now but it’s always kind of been like that.

Quincy Pondexter is the single person in the middle of Washington’s pregame stretching circle. He’s alone at the center circle surrounded by referees and the opposition’s captains. The only one left from his freshman class that dwindled from four to one, never reloaded.

He doesn’t look up like his teammates when a new video highlight package plays above the court he’s averaged 22 points per game on during his senior season. His teammates will prance, shuffle and shake as their names are called at introductions. Pondexter sits folded over with two clenched fists against his forehead then walks out when his name is called as if he just punched a clock.

Nothing is pierced. No part of him is tattooed, seemingly a prerequisite to ball these days.

“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve done things different than most guys,” Pondexter said.

Saturday will likely be the last time on the home floor that Pondexter will get a chance to show those differences. How he’s evolved from hyped then despondent freshman to versatile senior leader. A player that has picked up a nuance in each offseason and fine tuned his offensive game enough for him to become a leading Pac-10 player of the year candidate. A 6-foot-6 wing player who prefers to be labeled a guard and is projected to be a first-round pick in this year’s draft.

IT’S ODD TO SAY ABOUT such a touted prospect, who knew? After all, those 21 points, seven rebounds and three assists in his debut against Pepperdine in the fall of 2006 reaffirmed the labels.

He scored 12 or more points in 10 of his first 11 games. There was premature chatter about going to the NBA, talk Pondexter didn’t do much to stifle. Conference play started and his level of play fluctuated. Twenty five points against Arizona. One point against Cal nine days later. During an eight-game span in the latter pat of his freshman season, Pondexter averaged 5.6 points per game. He finished the season frustrated and averaging 10.7 points per game, that number largely based on his nonconference production. Fans grumbled about the production and hype.

“I didn’t have the game I have now,” Pondexter said of his younger self. “I didn’t have the fundamentals, the smarts I have now. Me and coach Romar and my family knew I had to get better at the little things so I could be successful in the long run.”

Quincy Pondexter has used a powerful post game on his way to 1,618 points for the Huskies. (Ted S. Warren/AP)

Pondexter left San Joaquin Memorial High School in Fresno, Calif., after playing with the Lopez twins, Brook and Robin. He played in AAU circles against Thaddeus Young, who now plays for the 76ers, and Javaris Crittenton, who played one season at Georgia Tech before becoming better known for gun play with Gilbert Arenas.

He came to Washington with Spencer Hawes who left after a single season. The Lopez twins spent two years at Stanford before declaring for the draft. Young was into the draft after one year.

Meanwhile, Pondexter slogged through his sophomore season. He averaged just 9.9 points per game. Numerous talks with Romar ensued. Weekly phone conversations with his godfather, former Celtic Glenn McDonald, took place. McDonald preached patience to Pondexter. Romar preached patience to Pondexter. Anyone who talked to him told him to be patient. It wasn’t easy.

“Very frustrating. You know when you have talent and you kind of have to hide it,” Pondexter said. “It was frustrating at times because I wanted to … you saw so many other people leaving. Spencer Hawes, the Lopez twins my sophomore year and all the kids I played with in AAU circles with and you see each other play every day and you know who is better, you know who is good. You see those guys and go onto the NBA and make millions of dollars, it just really hurts at times. I think that was the most difficult part.”

McDonald encouraged Pondexter to believe in Romar. This was a coach Pondexter respected, but this wasn’t family he was putting his future into the hands of. Trust was an issue.

“It is hard to believe,” Pondexter said of having faith in someone whose blood he did not share. “Sometimes you question it. You don’t know if it’s going to turn out just how they say it is.

“At the end of the day you witness what they have done with other players and you have to put your trust in their hands. Your game, your heart, everything in their hands. From then on, you have to see where it takes you.”

The summer between his sophomore and junior seasons, Pondexter headed to Las Vegas. He spent a week at Joe Abunassar’s Impact Basketball playing against NBA players.

But Pondexter wasn’t squaring off with other wing players. He was working on dribbling and chasing diminutive NBA darts like Tyronn Lue and Kyle Lowry.

“Our take on him was he really wanted to improve,” Abunassar said at the time. “He understand he needs to get better in certain areas. He worked his (butt) off the time he was with us and really showed a huge desire to improve, get to the next level. Very inquisitive, ‘What do I need to do? What do they do in the NBA?’

“Sometimes guys get it, sometimes they don’t. Hopefully he got it and can have a heck of a year.”

Pondexter was stronger and more skilled. Romar, typically coy in the preseason about naming starters, said Pondexter was a definitive along with Jon Brockman.

Solid in nonconference play, Pondexter’s production ascended during Pac-10 play. He hauled Washington through a bruising endeavor at USC during which Brockman and Justin Dentmon were stifled. He spent early February through early March scoring, rebounding, defending. The Huskies went on to the Pac-10 title and into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since he arrived on Montlake. Washington was ousted in the second round by Purdue, a loss Pondexter referred to unprompted for its pain level.

Pondexter’s only taste of the NCAA tournament came last season when he was a junior. (Jonathan Ferry/Getty Images)

HAWES WENT TO THE NBA after one year. Phil Nelson left after his freshman season. Adrian Oliver departed midseason his sophomore year. Pondexter remained and headed into his senior season alone after the 2006 freshman class had disbanded.

He spent the summer working again. Shirking pickup all the time, Pondexter, almost always serious and determined, drilled instead. Former Washington shooter Ryan Appleby would play in the open gym with the current and former Huskies. Appleby has gone into business for himself fixing wayward jumpshots. He started working with Pondexter a couple times a week. Then it became five, six times a week.

The two would commandeer any chair around, a folding one from the bench or a loose one in the hall of Bank of America Arena, and head into whichever court was not occupied by cheerleaders, volleyball players or the women’s basketball team. Pondexter would sit and shoot. Over and over. He was clearing his mechanics, disposing of shot-direction altering habits like bringing the ball up in the middle of his body and not shooting with his shoulder.

The ball handling and revamped jumpshot bolstered Pondexter’s game. Early in the season he would put the ball between his legs and pull-up from 17 feet. That didn’t happen previously. He hit three 3-pointers his junior season. He banged down four against UCLA this year.

As his game expanded, his personality stayed the same. He’s serious.

That’s the opposite of the rest of the Huskies. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see his 12 teammates arrive together in a multicolored Volkswagen Beetle with flowers painted on the side.

“Yeah, a little bit too serious,” Isaiah Thomas said while smirking. “But that’s him. Kind of like Brock. Brock’s a serious guy but he always played around when he knew to play around. But Quincy, he’s on that Kobe mentality.”

Thomas stiffens his shoulders and straightens up, then laughs.

“He just has to be serious all the time.”

Justin Holiday first encountered Pondexter when their high school teams played in the state semifinals in California. Pondexter was his host when the loose Holiday visited Washington. When asked if Pondexter clowns around like the rest of the group, Holiday starts laughing, which is not a surprise.

“Quincy doesn’t really clown around the basketball court,” Holiday said. “He’s not like any of us when it comes to clowning.” Holiday laughs some more at the thought.

THE END IN BANK OF AMERICA ARENA is likely here yet Pondexter is handling losing worse than ever. He can’t sleep at night after a loss, lamenting what he could have done differently. He’s been nervous for weeks about how the season would play out knowing Washington is edging further away from the NCAA Tournament instead of toward it.

Pondexter says he will be devastated and assume full blame if the Huskies miss the NCAA Tournament.

Including Saturday night, Pondexter has five scheduled games remaining. He’ll play at home, go crossstate to face the Cougars, then swing through Oregon for two. Then it’s back to California for the opening of the Pac-10 tournament. After that, who knows?

“You don’t know what your mark is going to be on the program after you leave,” Pondexter said. “There are just so many questions that go through your head and you don’t have the answers.

“Now it’s tough. You have to lay it all out there on the line because it’s coming down to the end and you have to fight.”

Pondexter will graduate in mid-March when the quarter ends. He switched from a communications major to a sociology major. He says his GPA hovers around 3.0, a distinct change from his high school academics.

In all, Pondexter has been molded into a man since his freshman year. Romar calls him a shining example of the four-year college process. It’s former teammate Appleby who puts it best.

“Once he started actually working on his individual game he started to see the results and got a huge confidence boost,” Appleby said. “Confidence can be a dangerous thing. It can be good or bad. For Quincy to have that confidence boost that he’s had, he just looks like a totally different person and player from his freshman year. You can’t compare the two people.”

Pondexter would run around the house and dunk through the rounded arms of his mother, Doris, when he was little. Now his 1,618 points at Washington has him 82 points shy of cracking the top five all-time at the school.

The NBA is closer than ever. He’s toned his game and lifestyle toward The League since he was posterizing his mom.

“I always wanted to be marketable,” Pondexter said. “I always thought of myself as trying to be marketable since I was a little kid which is crazy. You’re 10 years old and you’re thinking about if I do this, then this would be like this for the marketability.

“I always thought about things like that and everything has been kind of planned. Everything has been planned to where I knew I was going to be in a position like I am now and people are going to look at, man, he doesn’t have any tattoos, he doesn’t have any piercings, he doesn’t drink or smoke. He’s a good role model, we’ll take him.”

Who will take him will have to wait until June 24. There is the more pressing matter of playing UCLA on Saturday.

“Before the season, (I thought) maybe by now we could cut down the nets again and win the Pac-10 championship in front of College GameDay,” Pondexter said. “All that fairy tale stuff, but it didn’t happen that way.

“This is the end of my storybook. It’s going to be crazy to see how these next few weeks play out.”